Naming Our Common Ground

In A Brave and Cunning Prince, James Horn questions accepted narratives regarding 17th-century Virginia as he traces the life of Opechancanough, the brother of Chief Powhatan. According to Horn, Opechananough is the same individual who was known earlier in life as Paquiquineo or by the Spanish name, Don Luis. Spanish sailors traveling through the Chesapeake Bay kidnapped Paquiquineo, who spent the next ten years living in Spain and New Mexico. His travels introduced him to the Atlantic World and to continental America, where he learned firsthand the Spanish colonial practices and their treatment of America’s peoples.

The practice of renaming is often used to show a rebirth or a change in focus or direction and is common across many cultures. It is possible that Paquiquineo and Opechancanough are the same individual, as other Powhatan leaders adopted new names when they acquired new leadership roles. At other times though, Europeans forced new names on indigenous peoples as part of a process of colonization, erasing the cultural importance of their given names. Horn points out that Powhatan’s daughter was introduced to Europe as Rebecca, and we know her by a nickname, Pocahontas, rather than as the name she made sure appeared on her portrait, Matoaka. Similarly, in an effort to claim the physical landscape as well, Europeans also changed the names of geographical features.

Today’s place-names reflect Virginia’s 400-year history and Horn builds in explanations of English interpretations of the Algonquian language, and/or misinterpretations of English translations and understanding of customs, practices and verbal exchanges. For example, he analyzes William Strachey’s recording of Indian words sung in triumph after a skirmish and the meanings of Powhatan and Pocahontas’s actions when they were communicating with captive Captain John Smith. The maps within A Brave and Cunning Prince incorporate Indigenous names and the text is sprinkled with Algonquian terms. It is a reminder that Indigenous names peppered the Virginia landscape long before the English arrived and recorded their English names and their translations for geographic features in the Powhatan Confederacy.

-Cassandra Britt Farrell, Senior Map Archivist, and Jessi Bennett, Digital Collections Specialist